1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to maintaining and replicating instant messaging histories. More particularly, the present invention relates to consolidating a user's chat histories when the user utilizes more than one device for conducting instant messaging sessions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Instant messaging has become a critical communications technology for many users and organizations. Instant messaging allows a user to create a “session” with one or more other users so that messages can be sent back and forth contemporaneously. The flow of messages in an instant message session creates a dialog between the user and other users with whom the user has established a session. In this manner, quick messages can be transmitted without sending an email message or telephoning the other user. Users can choose whether and when to respond to instant messages, much like an email message. However, unlike email messages, in instant messaging, a window is displayed on the user's display showing the messages between the user and another user.
Instant messaging is available from a variety of different devices, or platforms, such as a user's desktop computer system, a user's laptop computer system, a user's mobile telephone, and a user's personal digital assistant (PDA). Sometimes it is useful to browse previous instant messaging discussions and, to facilitate this, many individual systems retain a history of “chats” (text messages) that were sent and received during an instant messaging session that took place on that particular device. Some of these devices, however, such as a mobile telephone, may have limited storage capacities and may not be able to store much, if any, chat histories. Another challenge confronting a user that utilizes more than one device to engage in instant messaging sessions is that chat histories that may be stored on one device are often inaccessible from another device. For example, if a user is engaging in a new instant messaging session with a customer by using the user's desktop computer system, the user is unable to retrieve a previous chat histories that resulted from the user having instant messaging sessions with the customer when using the user's mobile telephone and the user's laptop computer system.